Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Liveliness; briskness; sprightliness.
- n. Cheerful readiness or promptitude; cheerful willingness.
- n. Hence Readiness; quickness; swiftness.
Wiktionary
- n. Eagerness; liveliness; enthusiasm.
- n. Promptness; speed.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A cheerful readiness, willingness, or promptitude; joyous activity; briskness; sprightliness.
WordNet 3.0
- n. liveliness and eagerness
Etymologies
- Coined between 1500 and 1510 from Latin alacritās, from alacer ("brisk") + -itas ("-ity"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin alacritās, from alacer, lively. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The party gathered itself up with alacrity from the grass.”
“Moreover, simply recall the alacrity with which President Bush and his spin operatives seized upon each of these so-called "milestones" to fling Panglossian excrement into the collective eyes of America's dupes, in order to rationalize away a lost war and all the unnecessary blood on his hands.”
“Finally someone (we hope it was not Judith) called her number -- sixty-eight, and she sprang to the chalk line with what is usually termed alacrity, but it really sounded much more ominous.”
“And what added to our alacrity was our expectation of meeting with two of them instead of one, for we took it for granted that the light in view was carried in the top of one ship for a direction to her consort.”
“At one cross-road a dozen American Red Cross cars were drawn up, and I recall the alacrity of a middle-aged American doctor, wearing gold pince-nez, in hopping off his ambulance and snapshotting the colonel at the head of the battery.”
“At the call, not only his own waiter, but two other idle waiters belonging to a quite different row of tables, rushed towards him with obsequious alacrity, which is not the general characteristic of the waiters in the Café Umberto.”
“Franklin got up at once and walked away beside her, and Althea knew that his alacrity was the greater because he felt that by going with Miss Buckston he left her alone with her cherished friend.”
“At the call, not only his own waiter, but two other idle waiters belonging to a quite different row of tables, rushed towards him with obsequious alacrity, which is not the general characteristic of the waiters in the Cafe Umberto.”
“And you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down.”
“It can't happen with that kind of alacrity without real effort on the part of the business community, and I would say the community has defaulted to government in the last little while and allowed government to take the lead.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘alacrity’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron, paradox, realm and 297 more...
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GRE
GRE Vocabs
alacrity, celerity, haste, penitent, prosaic, veracity, paucity, maintain, laconic, pugnacious, disparate, egregious and 13 more...
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06-13 GRE list
churlish, unswear, abnegate, abjure, state, indemnification, adumbrated, reny, abash, recondite, rescission, esoteric and 260 more...
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csa
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Remember Not To Forget
Sephardic, Umwelt, amphiboly, untrammeled, sequela, pandiculation, tensegrity, syncretism, pugilism, shemagh, disquisition, perspicacity and 74 more...
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Transcendentalism (Thoreau)
A list of words from our Thoreau readings.
simplicity, Aurora, vigor, Memnon, somnolence, servitor, simplify, supernumerary, sentinel, rudiment, Veda, Saint Vitus and 43 more...
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SAT Master Vocab List
Words I have come across that I don't know the meaning of!
rumination, contrition, extemporize, effusion, exult, vexed, sumptuous, punitive, brethren, harridan, macabre, acrid and 123 more...
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1000 words
abdicate, aberration, abet, abide, abject, ablution, abnegate, aboriginal, abortive, abrogate, abstemious, abstruse and 78 more...
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My GRE Vocab
moniker, sobriquet, prerogative, aberration, aberrant, nuance, notorious, infamous, renown, allude, refer, content and 109 more...
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My Good Words
robust, seeth, uncanny, earnest, palpate, belabor, minx, plaintive, endemic, contingent, henceforth, perfunctory and 92 more...
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GRE Words
abjure, unswear, state, rescission, indemnification, ab, reny, abnegate, vitiated, vitiate, adumbrated, abash and 378 more...
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SAT vocab
abash, abate, abdicate, aberration, abhor, abject, abnegate, abortive, absolve, abstruse, accolade, accost and 175 more...
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GRE Study
Collection of GRE words
dogged, acumen, destitution, tenacious, paucity, alacrity, veracity, prosaic, malevolent, contrite, laconic, pugnacious and 43 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for alacrity.

kingparton Even the owner of the smallest enterprise acts with alacrity. The shoeshine boy flips his polishing rag with alacrity, the bartender serves a beer with alacrity, sliding it up to you along the polished surface of the bar.
Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography Dec 29, 2011
hekate101 Perhaps two years passing by before another comment is added indicates that the previous definition, though exhaustive, does not inspire alacrity? Dec 18, 2008
christophera alacrity, noun. From the Latin alacritas, meaning promptitude, and alacer, lively. Similar in meaning to its synonyms velocity and celerity, all three mean quickness in action or movement. Alacrity stresses promptness in response to a suggestion or command, cheerful and eager willingness, appropriate quickness, and in general the beginning of fast movement. Dec 13, 2006